Do-it-yourself bumper chip repair

High-quality repair work on the car body is an important point in ensuring a good appearance of the car and maintaining its high value in the secondary market. Do-it-yourself bumper cosmetic repairs are necessary for every fourth motorist, because it is this plastic part of the body that often becomes a victim of a limited view. Removing chips and scratches from the bumper is often more profitable than buying a new bumper and painting it completely. Even if you have to use a little putty.

Working with a bumper is not much different from repairing chips and scratches on metal body parts. Most modern cars have bumpers that are painted in body color, which requires high-quality and careful execution of any touch-ups. Otherwise, the place of repair will be too noticeable.

The ideal solution when working with a bumper is to dismantle it and install it at a convenient height - on a desktop, for example. This feature will allow you to see the chipped area more clearly and perform all actions more professionally. If there is no time or desire to remove the bumper, you can skip this step and prepare the touch-up area for repair work.

Let's discuss the option when chips or scratches are large enough. In this case, cover a small area around the chip with masking tape, and cover the undamaged parts of the bumper with newspaper or film so as not to spray paint on them. It is enough to do the following:

• wash off the top layer of paint to remove gloss from the entire pasted area of ​​​​the bumper;
• use fine sandpaper and constantly apply water to it so as not to scratch the bumper;
• after that, evaluate the need for puttying;
• if present, degrease the place of putty with a solvent, prepare a solution;
• putty the bumps, and then clean the hardened solution to a perfectly even state.

Video (click to play).

Putty freezes with a sufficient amount of hardener for about an hour. After that, clean up first with coarser sandpaper, then with fine sandpaper. If necessary, repeat the puttying process until the bumper surface is in perfect condition. After that, degrease the repair site again with a solvent.

If you want the repair to be of sufficient quality, you must also apply a primer layer. This can be done with a can or a spray bottle connected to a compressor. It is necessary to apply the primer in a small layer, moving the paint source 12-15 centimeters away from the bumper.

When the soil is dry, evaluate its perfectly flat surface. If there are any difficulties during the application of the primer, streaks or unnecessary deposits have formed, simply wash the primer using the procedure described above. This way you can bring the surface to perfect condition and completely avoid problems after the final painting.

To paint, you will need a spray can with a perfectly matched paint color or an enamel acquired after a computer selection, as well as a car varnish with which the paint is mixed. If there is no varnish of the required composition, you can refuse to use it. The procedure for painting the bumper is as follows:

• check the uniformity of the paint spray source on any flat surface;
• if all is well, move on to painting the bumper;
• the sprayer must be kept at a distance of 8-11 centimeters from the bumper;
• all movements should be sufficiently energetic and uniform;
• make sure that the paint does not get on parts of the bumper or car body that do not need repair;
• After painting, allow the parts to dry for a few hours.

This is the easiest way to apply car enamel to a bumper. Plastic has its own characteristics of the perception of paint, so often such repairs do not provide a long result. If the damage is deep, such local repairs may not be able to cope with the tasks.

Therefore, if there is too much damage, it is better to go to the service and entrust the work with the car to specialists. This will help you get much more beautiful results and permanent bumper repair.

In the presence of small chips or shallow scratches, it is enough just to fill them with paint. Of course, in the case of scratches, the result will not be as pleasant as you might expect. The scratch will still be visible, but will no longer be as noticeable as without painting.

Chips are repaired quite simply only if the damage did not reach the plastic base. In this case, the repair procedure will be simple:

• rinse and dry the chipped area, and also degrease it with a solvent;
• take some enamel that matches in color (the similarity of paint will play a major role here);
• use a small art brush or even a match;
• put a drop of paint on the chip and wait a bit until it completely spreads;
• after that, using a brush, match or other selected tool, smooth the enamel as much as possible along the deepening of the chip.

It may seem like a piece of jewelry, but in reality there is nothing complicated here. If you inadvertently drip paint on other body parts that you were not going to repair, just take a rag soaked in a solvent and wipe a fresh drop of paint.

Sometimes it is enough to polish with abrasive automotive chemicals to completely remove shallow scratches on the paint.

Of course, if the bumper is cracked, then it will have to be repaired by specialists, for example, as follows:

Before starting body repair work, determine if less serious remedies can help you. For example, a good professional polish can be a great alternative to repairing some scratches. Also, do not immediately perform a deep repair of the damaged area. Perhaps simple actions with a drop of high-quality enamel can solve your problem.

When performing repairs, remember that the quality of the result depends on the level of the selected materials, as well as on the professionalism of the actions taken. If possible, bodywork should be performed by specialists or under their supervision. Does anyone have experience doing body work in a garage?

Painting a car is one of the most complex technological processes in repair. It is possible to paint the car incorrectly, violating the technology, and then constantly receive the consequences of such an action. One of the options for incorrect painting is incorrect work with plastic. The black plastic of the bumper and other car parts cannot be painted with high quality without prior preparation. In the future, chips and scratches will occur on such a part. Even at a car wash, there will be problems when using special equipment under high pressure. Chips in the bumper can be repaired, but this does not always give the desired results. You need to know how to properly prepare the bumper for painting, how to apply the paintwork material, and also how to keep the paintwork layer in good visual and technical condition.

Chips on the bumper is a fairly large and common problem for owners of modern cars. Do-it-yourself paintwork repair in this case is possible.You can use from primitive to professional restoration tools, get a number of interesting possibilities for car restoration. But this does not always really bring the results we aspire to. It is necessary to fulfill all the conditions of technology that exist in this area. Only in this way can you really change things. And even a very professional repair does not guarantee that the chip will not appear tomorrow in another place. So it is better to approach bumper repair in a comprehensive manner and carry out this process taking into account all requirements. This will help to really update the part and give it the necessary quality of painting.

On a white car, black chips on the bumper look just awful. They are remarkably visible in any light and significantly spoil the impression of the car. It must be admitted that any motorist will want to get rid of such chips and problems. But most likely, a trip to the painter and ordering bumper painting services will not happen right away. Temporarily, you can perform such simple procedures using actually improvised means and good paint:

• buy the minimum amount of paint that is completely suitable in color for the bumper being painted, make sure that the paint material is of normal quality;
• then, using a match, apply a drop of paint to the cleaned surface of the chip - this method is suitable only for those cases where the chips do not exceed the size of the match cut;
• you can buy a can of paint that matches the color of your car, this can is much more difficult to use, you need to prepare the surface for application;
• the chip is cleaned, a little space around it is scraped off and cleaned, pasted over with special masking tape, and then painting is carried out using a spray can;
• you need to carefully drive the balloon at the same distance from the bumper, without touching other parts of the car, and also apply several layers of paint to be sure of the repair.

It must be remembered that painting with a match or a balloon is only a temporary solution to the problem. Most likely, in a few weeks the problems will appear again. Still everything depends on the resource of all problems. If a chip appeared on the sink, you will have to repaint the bumper - it is just very badly painted. If a stone flew into the bumper, you can simply repair the resulting chip and continue to use the car.

There are many issues that need to be resolved quickly and efficiently. Therefore, motorists are not always very critical of the painting problems of the car. But there are other car owners - for them, every little thing in the car is incredibly important and is simply an irreparable loss. Such people are ready to completely repaint the part to repair the chip on the bumper. But sometimes you can get by with the following local repairs:

• at the service, the specialist determines which paint elements are touched around the chip, and unnecessary layers are cleaned that can cause problems in the future;
• then the bumper is prepared for painting, possible irregularities are leveled, sufficiently high-quality preparation is carried out for applying paint and its high-quality service;
• if necessary, the surface is primed with a special primer for plastic in order to obtain a more or less high quality of operation of the paintwork;
• after that, paint is applied directly, ideally selected for this task, and after drying, polishing and surface preparation are carried out;
• in this way, all places that have already shown or may show in the near future serious problems in the operation of transport are processed.

It must be admitted that local repairs are almost always visible. That is, you can distinguish one paint from another. The fact is that no computer can pick up the paint 100% correctly and ideally.So the difference in tones, shine, freshness and smoothness will still be noticeable. However, you can take a more expensive, but more confident procedure - the complete painting of the part.

It is necessary to carry out a full-fledged painting of any part only with the help of a professional service center. Otherwise, you will have to constantly tint the part or be content with poor quality paint application. There are a number of features that should be observed in this process. Experts prefer not to talk about painting technology, since it is still impossible to perform it in garage conditions. The process is the following:

• the bumper is removed from the car, the paint is washed down to the ground or to the plastic, then the plastic is prepared for paint application, matted using special methods;
• after that, places are prepared under the bumper in the spray booth, the part is installed on a special stand and held on two points of support for high-quality painting;
• the surface of the bumper is opened with a primer in order to give the necessary operating conditions in the future, the soil dries up and, if necessary, is washed out;
• the last stage will be painting itself, which will again give the plastic part the necessary color, but now the paint will stick to the bumper much better;
• and another step can be considered polishing the result after drying and installing the finished painted bumper directly to the desired attachment point.

These are the stages of the most correct repair of chips on the bumper. If there are a lot of chips and scratches, there is no way to perform a different restoration. It's better to paint the entire bumper. Moreover, during painting, a rather complicated surface preparation takes place. This helps to remove all kinds of defects, eliminate irregularities and get just the perfect quality of vehicle operation in the future.

It is the bumper in the car that is the most unprotected element. He is subject to all influences that can only be. We are talking about rather difficult operating conditions. For example, the lower part of the bumper may be damaged when hitting a curb while parking the car. But there are other options for the appearance of chips on the plastic parts of the body of your car:

• abrasions from inaccurate turns and U-turns, from collisions with various obstacles, this is especially true for the rear bumper and the side parts of the front;
• very poor-quality painting, which causes chips and scratches out of the blue simply during the operation of the car or from the elements;
• washing a car on equipment that is too powerful, which can damage the paintwork, is a very important point, so it is better to always control the car after washing;
• falling of certain objects in garages and parking lots directly on plastic parts, this sometimes also causes their deformation and other troubles;
• getting stones from under the wheels of oncoming cars into the bumper - in this case, a chip is guaranteed even with factory painting, but plastic can also be damaged.

The use of sufficiently high-quality solutions for the repair and restoration of plastic parts is simply necessary. If you decide to paint over unpleasant chipped places with a brush, then know that it will look terrible. Yes, and soon all your art will disappear and make you repeat the procedure again and again. So it is better to perform professional restoration and get the necessary quality of car operation. We offer you to watch the video for professional bumper painting:

The bumper is quite difficult to paint, even when it comes to painting just one small area. Often, specialists have to paint using the most unusual solutions.Therefore, it is always worth contacting a service center where you can be offered really high-quality services. Otherwise, you will have to constantly repair the bumper and spend incredible money on this process. It is always better to use the services of a professional and pay even a fairly large amount of money than to pay three times the inexpensive price. In the end, you will still get more expenses if you save on the quality of the services you receive.

Therefore, it is always worth contacting specialists in quality service centers. A guarantee for painting is given quite rarely, so keep an eye on the quality of the services performed, use additional solutions. Sometimes the use of such services becomes a great chance to bring the appearance of the car in order. But sometimes the masters do not provide a sufficiently high quality of work. And then you have to control every step of the specialists and actually supervise each stage of painting. What would you do if you saw a rather large and ugly chip on the bumper of your car?

Having broken the plastic bumper on a VAZ car, the owner can relatively inexpensively purchase and install a new one, painted in the right color. The owners of foreign cars are not so lucky, plastic body kits for their cars are much more expensive. The way out is to repair the damaged part by repairing the crack with your own hands in order to save money. It is also useful for owners of Russian cars to know about ways to restore broken plastic, but not to buy a new element because of small cracks.

Depending on the amount of damage and the type of plastic, the following cracked bumper methods are practiced:

• cosmetic bonding with acetone and donor plastic;
• gluing with modern chemical compounds;
• fastening on epoxy resin with the use of fiberglass reinforcing mesh;
• sealing the crack with a soldering iron reinforced with a metal mesh;
• welding with a hot air gun and a plastic rod.

Reference. There is one simple method used by car enthusiasts who do not care too much about the appearance of the car. This is the connection of the edges of the crack with wire or staples from a stapler. This is a simple matter, which means that it makes no sense to consider this technology, everything is clear anyway.

The use of acetone for bonding, which can dissolve many types of plastics, is a temporary measure used for small cracks that appear in the middle of the body kit. Its essence is this:

1. Pieces of plastic, similar in composition to the bumper material, are selected and dissolved in acetone to a thick consistency.
2. On the back of the bumper, the crack is degreased and also treated with acetone in order to soften the surface.
3. Liquefied plastic is applied to the damage from the reverse side, after which it hardens for several hours. Outside, the defect can be tinted with a corrector tube.

With the help of thick two-component compounds, sold in two tubes, any single cracks in most varieties of plastic are repaired. The exception is fiberglass body kits, they are glued together with epoxy resin, and in case of serious damage, reinforcement with fiberglass mesh is used.

With numerous large cracks, breaks and holes in the bumper, gluing methods become ineffective. In such cases, soldering or welding with a hot air gun using a donor polymer material is practiced. After such a repair, the defect site is thoroughly cleaned and painted in the color of the car. At the end, it is necessary to do a full polishing of the bumper so that the painted area does not stand out against the background of the old coating.

Advice. If you got into an accident or collided with an immovable obstacle and broke through the body kit, try to collect all but the smallest pieces that flew off. This will allow you to use "native" plastic for repairs and not look for something similar.

The preparatory process differs little for various methods of gluing and welding polymer parts, so it should be considered separately. The first question is whether it is necessary to remove the bumper in order to make repairs. In most cases, dismantling is indispensable, since the plastic must be sealed on both sides. The exception is broken body kits, cracked in many places. They must first be fastened together, and then removed. Otherwise, after repair, the part may lose its shape, which is why the attachment points will not converge, and the gaps with adjacent elements will increase.

Reference. Often the body of the bumper comes off at the attachment points and small pieces of plastic remain on the screws. Before dismantling, such a part is securely welded to the torn mount and only then removed.

To prepare a damaged body kit for repair, you need the following tools and materials:

• a set of keys and screwdrivers for removing the element;
• electric grinder;
• sandpaper of different grain sizes - from P180 to P320;
• degreasing liquid - an organic solvent or white spirit;
• rag.

Note. Using a grinder, you can clean up better and much faster than by hand. This and other power tools that will be needed for painting and polishing can be rented for 2-3 days.

Regardless of whether work is carried out directly on the car or with the bumper removed, it must be thoroughly washed and dried. Then, with a large sandpaper, it is necessary to peel off the paint with an indent of 3-5 cm from the crack in each direction and grind the area with fine sandpaper. Whatever method of repair you choose, the paint must be removed to the base, otherwise it will interfere with the adhesion of the adhesive or the fusion of polymers during welding. At the end, the area should be degreased.

Advice. The quality of body kit repair depends on the conditions in which it is made. It is more convenient to close up damage in a garage equipped with an inspection ditch for easy removal of the part and soldering loose fasteners in place.

To implement this method, you need to purchase the following bumper repair kit from the 3M brand:

• 2 FPRM components for the preparation of a liquid polymer in tubes of 150 ml (price - about 2500 rubles);
• special hard tape;
• self-adhesive reinforcing mesh made of fiberglass (otherwise - fiberglass) 48 mm wide;
• an adhesion initiator in an aerosol can;
• 2 spatulas - wide and narrow;
• stationery knife;
• gloves, goggles.

Reference. Similar kits are offered by other manufacturers, but the 3M brand is the most well-known and proven in practice.

Bonding with liquid polymer is suitable for most plastics and can be performed both with the body kit removed and on the car. True, the second option is rather inconvenient, plus you will need good lighting in the viewing hole. To cut a crack, you will need an electric drill (not a grinder!) With a mandrel for abrasive wheels. Repair consists of the following technological operations:

Using a low speed drill and an abrasive wheel, chamfer at an angle of about 30° along the edges of the crack on both sides. In cross section, it looks like this: Irregularities must be patched before painting.

Important! After mixing the components, the composition must be used within 6 minutes, which is quite enough to apply to the damage on one side. The curing time of 30 minutes is correct for room temperature 21-23°C, therefore, when working in a cold room, it is necessary to organize local heating of the bumper (for example, with an infrared heater).

If irregularities are noticeable on the front side of the element, then before painting, apply a little putty intended for plastic to the differences. After drying, clean it with P1500 sandpaper, degrease and paint with a spray gun, having previously applied a layer of primer. After 1 day, polish the surface of the body kit.

The technology is used to repair damage to body kits made of fiberglass, since the previous technique is not suitable in this case. What is required for work:

• fiberglass for bumper repair;
• polyester (epoxy) resin complete with hardener;
• soft brush;
• stationery knife or scissors;
• latex gloves.

Advice. If a bulge or depression has formed at the point of impact, immediately after stripping, level it using a building hair dryer for heating.

Since fiberglass patches will have to be applied on both sides of the damaged area, it is better to dismantle the bumper from the car. Having completed all the preparatory work, including stripping paint and degreasing, proceed in the following sequence:

1. Using a grinder with coarse sandpaper (P80-P120), make a recess in the body of the bumper from the front side, covering a radius of 3-5 cm from the crack. This is necessary so that the fiberglass overlay does not protrude beyond the plane of the part.
2. On the back side, make a stripping with a large sandpaper, but without deepening. Degrease the area and let it dry.
3. Cut out the fiberglass patches. On the front part, you need to make a neat patch that repeats the shape of the recess, and from the rear, you can glue a rectangular overlay.
4. Mix the resin with the hardener in the proportions indicated on the packaging. Apply the composition with a brush to the surface, apply a patch (you can in several layers) and impregnate it with resin.
5. Accurately keep the time specified for the curing of the epoxy composition (written on the resin container), then carefully clean the repair area with fine sandpaper. The task is to level the surface by removing the protrusions.

Note. Coarse-grained sandpaper is initially used to create a roughness on the surface of the plastic, which contributes to better adhesion of the polyester adhesive.

On this, the repair work on the plastic itself is over, then cleaning, priming and painting are carried out according to standard technology. The last operation is bumper polishing, it is necessary to give the element a uniform shine.